Nearly every available seat in the Brush Council Chambers was filled Monday evening as several residents attended the city council meeting to voice their opinions about the possibility of closing the railroad crossing at Hospital Road.

Closing the road is one of four options that have been evaluated as options to create a “quiet zone” and eliminate the need for noisy train horns to be blown as trains pass through the crossing. Additional safety measures need to be put in place for the crossing to be approved as a quiet zone, necessitating changes to the design of the crossing or else its closure.

All who spoke did so against the possibility of closing the crossing. Mayor Chuck Schonberger explained at the start of the meeting that the state’s public utilities commission had told the city that if closed, it would likely be unable to ever reopen the crossing.

Brush City Administrator Monty Torres opened the meeting with an explanation of the train horn issue. He said the city council had began discussing the possibility of addressing the noise generated by the horns seven or eight years ago as a result of citizen comments about the negative quality-of-life impacts of the noise and had placed it on a list of council priorities then.

He said the city had undertaken a quiet zone study in 2009 that had “given it a pretty good idea of what it would take to put a quiet zone in place.” The city first implemented a quiet zone at its other crossing at Clayton Street.

The city first implemented a quiet zone at Clayton Street because there were fewer infrastructure issues and other obstacles to redesigning that crossing to allow for a quiet zone than at Hospital Road. At the Clayton Street crossing, a raised median was installed to prevent drivers from maneuvering around the gate. A raised median is one of the options being considered for the Hospital Road Crossing.

The city obtained cost estimates for the four options as part of the 2009 study. Torres said closing the crossing represented the cheapest option as the city would only have to pay to install new barriers. Torres did not cite a cost estimate for closing the crossing but said it was significantly cheaper than the other options which ranged from at least $85,000 for a raised median to around $500,000 for a four-quadrant gate option.

Torres said the city was first seeking public opinion about the closure option because it represents the cheapest and simplest way to make Hospital Road a quiet zone. However, it also comes with significant drawbacks as it would leave the city with only one crossing and would thus limit the capacity of emergency vehicles to access areas south of the railroad tracks, particularly on the west side of town.

Torres said that if the public came out against the closure option, the city would then undertake a more extensive study of the other options in order to gather more exact estimates of their infrastructure impacts and costs.

A Clear Consensus

Many of the public comments were focused on the impact of closing the access on emergency response. A representative from Brush Meat Processors said he was worried about how quickly emergency vehicles would be able to get to his employees if the crossing were closed. He said his plant is also considering expansion and could add more employees.

“You guys talked a little bit about the emergency vehicles coming through and that’s what concerns me most. We’ve got 68 people there,” he said.

The representative did acknowledge that the crossing is often blocked by trains sitting on the tracks and cannot be crossed anyway but said that the possibility of it being used by a vehicle to possibly save someone’s life made it worth keeping it open.

“I don’t think it would be a very good idea to close it based on money alone,” he said.

Another resident echoed those concerns by stating that it would add an extra four minutes for emergency vehicles to reach certain areas of town if the crossing was eliminated.

“Four minutes is a long time when there is a potential loss of life,” he said.

That resident also pointed out that the increasing waiting time for emergency vehicles could impact insurance ratings for residents and businesses on the south side of the tracks.

Brush School District RE-2J Superintendent Bill Wilson was also among those who spoke in favor of keeping the crossing.

“[The district] did not have formal action in regards to a positional statement but by common consent our belief and our position would be that while we don’t use that crossing regularly at this point we would like it to stay open just for the future of Brush and for access both for school busses as well as for safety,” he said.

Wilson also spoke about his belief that a quiet zone was necessary for the Ebenezer Lutheran Care Center, which he said “needs to be competitive as one of the shining stars of our community.”

Ebenezer is located immediately adjacent to the crossing and its residents experience significant exposure to the noise of the horns. Wilson said he worries the noise would discourage people from choosing to live at the center. This concern was echoed by many in attendance, including a representative from Ebenezer and a resident of the facility who said the noise presents a significant quality of life burden.

Torres said residents who did not feel comfortable speaking during the meeting could also write a letter or e-mail expressing their feelings about the issue to the city clerk.

Paul Albani-Burgio writes features and covers entertainment, the arts and community events for the Loveland Reporter-Herald and Longmont TImes-Call. He came to Loveland from Fort Morgan, where he covered city and county government, crime and the ups and downs of the local sugar plant. He has also written for 5280 and Boston magazines and Bizwest. He is a fan of old movie theaters, Thai food and, despite their unwavering tendency to break his heart, the Mizzou Tigers.